


kill me anytime

by AlphaFlyer



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Divergence, Comics/Movie Crossover, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Natasha Romanov Joins SHIELD, Remix, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24222949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaFlyer/pseuds/AlphaFlyer
Summary: It’s been a very long time, if ever, that she has looked at a man other than through a targeting scope. It feels strange and oddly liberating.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Kate Bishop, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 41
Kudos: 147
Collections: be_compromised Remix Exchange 2020





	kill me anytime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gsparkle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsparkle/gifts).
  * Inspired by [call me any, anytime](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17899250) by [gsparkle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsparkle/pseuds/gsparkle). 



> Written for the **be_compromised** 2020 Remix fest, in which I drew **gsparkle**. Now her stories are intrinsically perfect, so the thought of turning one of them inside out sent me into a lengthy state of paralysis. Then I had a late-night chat with **Alistra** , and somehow that triggered this mash-up of some of the things my remixee was looking for: _Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, Romantic Comedy, First Meetings_ and _Comics/Movie Crossover_. 
> 
> It’s inspired by the lovely ["call me any, anytime"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17899250), which is all about a wrong number that turns out to be very right. Wrong numbers I could do, even without phones! I de-AU’d gsparkle’s Natasha back into Black Widow mode, with a whiff of Coffee Shop, and then I remixed, like, _everything_ : Comics history, chronology, time, story lines… you name it. You may recognize individual snippets, blowing in the winds of the Multiverse.
> 
> Image credits to the inimitable Phil Noto, from his wonderful Black Widow run. A bazillion thanks to Alistra for staying up late and giving this a just-before-posting-deadline beta read. Above and beyond!

The people hiring contract killers in the West are not at all what Natasha is used to. It must have something to do with plausible deniability, something the Red Room never had to worry about - presumably the vaguer the instructions, the easier it will be for those requesting a specific death to plead the “ _Who, me??”_ defense.

At least this would explain why the information Natasha has been given about her mark is next to useless. A photograph, with a detachable post-it note that says, _Corner of Tompkin and Quincy, Brooklyn, NY._ No name, and would it have been too much to provide an actual address? Never mind instructions such as “make it look like an accident” or “leave no body, please”? For the first time since leaving the Red Room, Natasha wonders whether going freelance was such a good idea, although the rather large cash advance is a positive.

The intersection in question turns out to include an apartment building, which is a good start; fortunately, there’s also a coffee shop across the street. Natasha settles down at a rickety table on the sidewalk, for a spot of preliminary background observation over a latte and a croissant. The place is about as charming as a bus stop in Vladivostok, but the croissant is first class.

Nothing at all happens for two hours and twenty-seven minutes. It’s a good thing that American coffee shops seem to be fine with patrons occupying prime hospitality real estate forever, provided they bring an electronic device. In Vienna or Paris she would have been thrown out after the first hour.

Natasha is just about to order another coffee – espresso this time, because there’s only so much liquid the human body can hold – when the front door of the building opens. She permits her adrenaline to spike just the tiniest little bit, only to feel it ebb almost instantly.

Definitely not her mark. But, for a false alarm, also not uninteresting.

What emerges from the building is quite possibly the most attractive man Natasha has ever seen, tall and rangy and the good kind of dirty blond. He’s athletic, too, but not in a bulky way, and …

She mentally slaps herself for this inappropriately hormonal response, but she also does not look away. Instead, she focuses on his companion, quite possibly the ugliest dog in the tri-state area. Floppy-eared, mangy and of uncertain parentage, the creature is afflicted with a lop-sided limp probably caused by the fact that it is blind in one eye.

But what the dog lacks in beauty, it makes up for with unrestrained love for its owner. Out of nowhere, it yelps and jumps up on his legs in a spontaneous outburst of affection. The man, in turn, responds by stopping and bending down – right there, in the middle of the street – to scratch its ears, which triggers an enthusiastic _woof_ and the emergence of an enormous pink tongue.

For a brief shining moment, this attractive man and his equally unattractive dog are utterly absorbed in each other, a tableau of unconditional love, loyalty and devotion that tweaks something deep inside Natasha’s gut.

“ _Something something lucky something good dog something”,_ she can just make out over the sudden sound of screeching brakes and prolonged, energetic honking, which they both blissfully ignore. Fortunately Quincy is a one-way street or the chaos would be complete.

Eventually though, the man realizes that he and his dog are surrounded by hostile people in potentially lethal metal objects. He straightens, shrugs a vague apology at no one in particular and heads for the coffee shop, straight towards the entrance where Natasha is sitting. 

He is clearly not her mark, not by a long shot, but in the absence of anything else interesting happening in the last two hours and twenty-eight minutes, Natasha allows her attention to shift momentarily.

He is even hotter up close. His arms in particular are … something else.

“You two could have been killed,” she informs him as he approaches her table. “Would have been a shame about the dog.”

At first, he ignores her, as he had the offended drivers, one of whom is still screaming obscenities out of a rolled-down window. But then he notices her and that she may be expecting an answer to a question.

He stops, pulls something out of his pocket and sticks it in his ear. _A hearing aid._ Well, that explains a few things.

“Sorry, did you say something?” he says pointing at his ear, with a blinding smile clearly designed to melt the panties off a lesser woman than the Black Widow. “I wasn’t watching your mouth. Obviously, I should have. I won’t make _that_ mistake again.”

Natasha’s lips quirk involuntarily.

“You could have been killed just now,” she repeats, with a nod towards the street. “Do you always stop in the middle of traffic to pet your dog?”

He shrugs.

“Only when necessary. Which it was.”

He turns to the dog, who has been sniffing around the tables looking for … what? Food? Another dog? Fulfillment? He appears to have found it in Natasha, and wags his tail furiously.

“He’s been such a good boy, and we haven’t seen each other for a while.”

On closer inspection, the dog – and yes, he’s definitely a boy - is in even worse shape that she had thought. Not only is he indeed blind in one eye, but also quite possibly as deaf as his owner. She succumbs to temptation and scratches him behind the ear, a move that reduces him to a state of near-catatonic bliss.

Mr. Arms focuses back on Natasha. The intensity of his eyes, like those of a bird of prey, is disconcerting. They could be the eyes of a killer, but for the sweat pants, the hearing aids and that dog. The moment passes; his eyes warm and she almost misses what he says next.

“Lucky seems to like you.” It’s a statement, as if she just passed some kind of test. “He doesn’t trust a lot of people. He’s been through a lot.”

“I’m flattered, I guess.”

He breaks into another one of those blinding smiles, which is even more distracting than the rest of him, and for some reason it’s only now that she notices the Band-Aid over the bridge of his nose. Her powers of observation are clearly slipping in this man’s presence - a concern she decides not to deal with right this very moment.

“Nice to meet you, by the way,” he says. “Would love to stay and chat, but I can’t. I have a coffee emergency and a friend coming over. Maybe next time? I’ll try not to get myself killed, seeing that’s a problem for you. C’mon, Lucky.”

And with that, he waves and disappears into the coffee shop, followed by his defective but loyal mutt. Natasha looks after them for a second, wondering briefly what just happened, and shakes her head to clear it of the unexpected cobwebs. When she looks back at the apartment building, it is just in time to see the door closing behind someone.

_Damn._

Time to call it a day. Luckily, there’s no immediate deadline on the contract, especially if you endow the words “as soon as possible” with the same vagueness her employer had given to the directions.

Natasha gathers her belongings and leaves before that … _distraction_ emerges back from the shop.

*****

A call to her employer to try and get more detail on the mark’s location yields (1) an interesting snippet of building block intel, (2) one bit of actionable information, and (3) a warning.

The reason no one knows which apartment her mark can be found in, is that a recent unfortunate incident caused anyone with knowledge of the building’s layout to be ‘unavailable for consultation’. The useful information – delivered through clenched teeth - is that the mark is closely associated with the building’s owner and that she can usually be found in his company.

_Find the owner, find the target._

As for the warning, she is not to touch the owner. The phrase “a bit of a hornet’s nest” is mentioned. Natasha inwardly rolls her eyes as she hangs up. _Americans._ Always worried about consequences.

Time for some research.

The owner, a quick title search informs her, is one C.F. Barton, Esq. Unfortunately land registries don’t come with photo ID, and an internet search yields nothing. He is either one of those older people without a computer, or a very clever person who very carefully leaves no footprints on the internet. But if he was the latter, why wouldn’t her employer want to kill him, too?

Likely the job she has been hired for is about revenge, not professional rivalry. She usually prefers the latter: far less personal, and often leads to follow-on business.

*****

The next time Natasha sees the man from the café is later that night, from a fire escape.

She has never been able to figure why anyone would consider something that provides such easy access to people’s apartments as a safety feature. It comes in handy though, even if she’ll have to jump up a bit to get to the bottom rung. But first, the ground floor.

The studio is inhabited by a young, energetic Rastafarian type, rocking out to some music only he can hear in his earphones. The other apartment seems to have a gay couple in it - how else do you explain two women cooking in the same tiny kitchen, without arguing? Thai curry, it smells like… Time to move on, and up.

Natasha jumps, pulls herself up with little effort, and starts her climb. Second floor: a guy who looks a bit like Western images of Jesus, except with glasses, is sitting in a rocking chair with a glass of wine and a book. The known-by-his-initials-only owner, perhaps? There is no evidence of anyone else with him in the flat, though.

Natasha mentally puts Rocking Chair Jesus into square brackets [to be revisited] and peeks into the place on the other side of the shared fire escape. That one is poorly lit, but the lilting sounds of a Spanish lullaby come through a half-open window. Her target is young, but not _that_ young. Pass.

The third floor is where she finds the distracting near-car crash guy from her fruitless coffee stakeout. His blond hair is a surprisingly adorable mess, the Band-Aid still in place, and he’s lounging on a sagging couch with his feet on a coffee table. 

The table holds an empty pizza carton, a pair of hearing aids, and … _arrowheads?_ He seems to be working on one, humming a slightly out-of-tune song as he does.

_Wait. Did her traitorous mind just call his hair “adorable”?_

Anyway, arrows. That would explain the arms. Mr. Band-Aid must be a hobby archer – likely a serious one, given that he maintains his own equipment.

Lucky-the-defective-mutt is on the couch too, his head resting on his master’s legs - fast asleep by the looks of it.

Knowing that he won’t be able to see her in the darkness from inside his well-lit living room, Natasha allows herself the luxury of a leisurely look. Long legs; nicely developed pecs under a t-shirt with a purple arrow design (really?); the reflections of some TV show flickering across pleasantly, but not overly, chiseled features; those arms…

It’s been a very long time, if ever, that she has looked at a man other than through a targeting scope. It feels strange and oddly liberating.

 _Professional,_ she reminds herself. _Natasha Alianovna Romanova - you are a professional. A professional on a mission._

There is no other presence in the apartment, apart from the dog, and she is out of excuses to linger. Reluctantly, Natasha readies herself to move on towards the next widow when something shifts.

The man on the couch doesn’t move, not even a twitch of the muscles suggests that he has sensed something. He just stills. And his eyes…

Those disturbingly sharp eyes move just a fraction to the right. Natasha could swear they are boring straight into her own, like one of his arrows might into a target – unerringly, despite the darkness.

_Shit._

Made for only the second time in her life (maybe the third, if you count Volgograd – Yelena sure would) Natasha glides backwards towards the edge of the fire escape and drops like a cat. She melts into the back alley that runs behind the buildings, finding cover behind the dumpsters and oversized garbage cans. She emerges at the far end of the block, but not until she has turned her dark jacket inside out. The inside lining is what she likes to think of as a distracting flare: bright yellow, soft leather.

Natasha emerges back onto Quincy and the smells and sounds of Brooklyn’s lesser eateries and casts a quick glance down the street.

He is easy to miss at first, but then she looks up and sure enough, there he is: Perched on the highest possible vantage point, without any apparent fear of falling, he is scanning the entire neighbourhood for the intruder who had just been peeking into his window. The bow in his hands does not look like the kind you take to a weekend competition; Natasha has the uncomfortable feeling that if he had seen a yellow jacket on that fire escape, his arrow would find her.

 _Hornets nest_ , her employer had said. Well, that’s not wrong: That innocuous building sure comes with an unexpected sting. 

She shakes her head to try and clear it and make room for this most recent intel when she runs headlong into a young, dark-haired woman, on her cellphone and in an obvious rush.

“Sorry,” Natasha mutters automatically.

“No worries,” says her mark, barely adjusting her stride. “Stuff happens.”

*****

The _Furnished Apartment for Rent Upstairs, Inquire Within_ sign in the coffee shop window couldn’t come at a better time.

As an excuse to be in the neighbourhood, while she keeps her eye on the building with the avenging angel on top, it’s a reasonable addition to her expenses. It is, after all, not Natasha’s fault that she has been given only this location as the place to find her mark. Clearly there are reasons for her employer wanting the hit to happen here.

“Previous tenant just up and left,” the coffee shop owner, Danny something, says when she asks about the rental. “Couldn’t cope with that whole Russian mafia thing and the gunfire, I guess. Left a mess, too; took me weeks to clean it up and get it in renting shape.”

“Russian mafia?”

Natasha is intrigued. More than intrigued, in fact. Clearly, more research is in order.

“Tried to take over the whole block, they did,” Danny says, huffing up the stairs ahead of her. “Wanted to turn it into a shopping mall, they did, and the hell with the people what live here. Would have killed my shop, too. But the Hawkeyes stopped them in the end. _The Battle of Bed-Stuy_ , we call it here.”

There’s a note of pride in his voice.

The apartment is small and dank despite the supposed cleanup, and Natasha spends the first evening getting rid of her pent-up frustrations by slaying several dozen cockroaches. But it’s better than many places she’s had to hole up in over the years (no bedbugs, at least) and the view of the apartment building across the street is excellent.

Plus, there’s the coffee shop at the bottom of the stairs, and now Natasha has the perfect reason for spending time in it to keep an eye on the neighbors.

She picks up a burner Chrome Book at a store a few blocks away, sets up a dummy account and turns the table by the entrance into her temporary office. Combining research into recent incidents in Bed-Stuy with an active stakeout _and_ a decent latte? Let no one ever say the Black Widow can’t multi-task.

Intriguingly, what she can find about the famous neighbourhood incident is limited to a few perfunctory lines in the Brooklyn Eagle and the BKLYNER; there’s absolutely no mention in the NYT. Bottom line: an attempt by certain foreign interests to take over a block of Quincy Street was met with local protest and withdrawn. Nothing about a battle and no mention of any ‘Hawkeyes’’.

Danny shrugs off the discrepancy.

“Big money involved,” he whispers. “Someone musta clamped down on the whole thing, ‘coz who knows whose behind it, huh?”

She wants to ask more, of course, but the intriguing human disaster/lethal gargoyle makes his way across the street just then, accompanied by his faithful dog. Danny waves and disappears inside.

“Hey,” the object of her interest says as he approaches her table. “You’re still here. Or again? Obviously you haven’t been sitting there for two days. But that’s nice. To see you again, I mean.”

The fact that he remembers her, however incoherently he manages to express that fact, warms something inside her that she can’t quite explain. She is unable to suppress a smile.

“And you’re still alive, like you promised.”

He points to his hearing aids.

“Discovered it helps when you actually put them in. I can hear the cars now. Lengthens the odds considerably.”

He flashes her one of those disarming grins, and with a touch of an apology vanishes into the shop, taking the dog with him. When he emerges a few minutes later, he is carrying two large cups in a cardboard holder and a bag of pastries.

“Friend visiting again?” Natasha asks him, since he seems to slow down as he passes by her table.

“Yep,” comes the answer. “Archery lessons. Normally I make her bring the coffee, but I needed one, like, _now._ See you around?”

He actually sounds hopeful, and for some reason Natasha cannot quite fathom, she gives away information without any kind of coercion, and entirely for free.

“Probably,” she says. “I moved in upstairs.”

“Great,” he says with far more enthusiasm than she should have reasonably expected. “Soon, then!”

With that he bounds across the street, safely this time, followed by his limping hound. And is met at the front door by none other than her mark, the dark-haired young woman whose name Natasha has yet to be told. That they know each other is beyond doubt: Lucky-the-dog jumps up and down with excitement, as her mark takes the coffee tray out of the man’s hand while he fumbles with the key.

Life just got a little bit more … complicated. The irrational twinge of jealousy Natasha feels at their obvious intimacy does nothing to make it less so.

Just then Danny turns up to see if Natasha needs another latte (she does). He follows her eyes across.

“I see you’ve met Clint?” he asks.

 _Clint._ The _C_ in ‘C.F. Barton’. He’s the owner. _Of course._

“Barely,” she says. “We’ve exchanged a few words. Who exactly is he? And is that his girlfriend?”

Danny picks up the plate with the croissant crumbs.

“Them’s the Hawkeyes,” he says, as if that explains everything. “What saved the block from the Mafia. Clint Barton and Kate Bishop. Clint owns the building.”

 _Kate Bishop and Clint Barton_. At least she now has the names, of the one she is supposed to kill, and the one she’s not.

*****

Over the next couple of weeks, several things happen. 

A moderate amount of research discloses the fact that Kate Bishop is the daughter of Derek Bishop, a multi-millionaire with more shady dealings under his belt than Natasha has kills. Which might explain why the ‘Battle of Bed-Stuy’ has gotten as little media attention as it has - money is a powerful sanitizer. It might also explain why she is not supposed to carry out the hit at Kate’s own home – professional courtesy, or caution.

Now that she knows which apartment to watch, Natasha feels perfectly entitled to spend much of her time looking at Clint Barton’s window, especially at night, when it is lit. 

This is what she learns, in no particular order:

  * Clint Barton seems to be naturally a bit of a slob, but he does keep kitchen surfaces clean. Lately, he has started to work at tidying his place up. The reasons for this change are unclear.
  * He drinks more coffee than she does. Often from a pot, but only when Kate is not there.
  * Lucky eats pizza. A lot of pizza. Sometimes Clint buys one just for his dog, while he gets Chinese instead.
  * Clint and Kate hold archery practice on the roof, often for hours at a time, except when one of the tenants is barbecuing, in which case everyone eats hamburgers (instead of pizza).
  * Natasha never knew that arrows could be that accurate, and strike a target with such consistency.
  * He disappears for hours at a time, taking his bow; once he is gone for two days during which time Kate comes in to feed Lucky and watch TV.
  * Under his sweatpants, he goes commando.
  * His abs are as solid as they look, based on what happens when Kate pokes them.



When she is not looking into Clint’s window, Natasha spends time sipping lattes at one of the outside tables in the coffee shop. Coincidentally this tends to be when Kate isn’t around, because equally coincidentally, Clint turns up a few minutes later, almost as if he’d been watching and waiting for her to appear.

They have small conversations about the weather at first; about Lucky; about how much this ordinary, unglamorous neighbourhood and its ordinary, unglamorous people mean to him.

She watches him carry groceries into the apartment building next door for a tiny, bent old Asian lady. Danny gives him a free coffee afterwards, because apparently Mrs. Imamoto forgets that you have to pay for groceries and Clint usually does it for her. He says it’s to pay back for the childhood she lost in an internment camp.

After two weeks, Natasha knows that Clint Barton is an orphan who got his training in the circus, and he learns in turn that she is an orphan who works as a consultant. He doesn’t ask what she consults, nor does he volunteer what he does when he’s not being a landlord. He hints at having just emerged from a low period in his life but that he’s getting better, especially now that ‘Katie-Kate’ is back.

And yes, when she speaks he is watching her lips, as he promised he would, in a way that makes her tingle just a little.

Natasha also learns that Kate is definitely not his girlfriend (“Are you kidding? She’s, like, _nine_!”); that Kate spent a few weeks in California with Lucky (hence that near-fateful celebration on the road); and that Kate has the unrequited hots for some totally awesome girl named America but thinks she’s not worthy of her. Which Clint totally gets, because that how he usually feels (he gives Natasha an odd look here) but he thinks it is totally unjustified in Kate’s case, because she is awesome.

The story of Kate and America apparently involves a fair amount of pining and Clint is developing a plan to get them stuck in either (a) a one-bed cabin, (b) a tent in a snowstorm, or (c) a stranded shuttlecraft. Natasha being a woman, does _she_ think that would work?

Natasha finds herself enjoying these conversations more than she should, and finds herself getting more invested in Kate’s love life than she probably should.

New York is going through one of those gorgeous spells you sometimes get there in mid-May, warm but not too; bright and sunny; budding trees everywhere; no bugs yet. Natasha has spent time on terraces and stakeouts in some of the most picturesque corners of Europe, but this shabby little part of Brooklyn is growing on her and she can’t put her finger on why.

Even when there is no one to watch, she walks around the neighbourhood, learning where the best take-outs are, watching the coffee shop for Danny when he has errands to run, and once or twice buying groceries for Mrs. Imamoto or taking her home when she looks lost.

The one thing she _doesn’t_ do in those couple of weeks, is kill Kate Bishop.

*****

It’s not like Natasha hasn’t figured out that archery practice is every day around the same time, except when Clint is off doing whatever he does that he doesn’t talk about. And it’s also not like Natasha couldn’t just pick Kate off with one of her Glocks, while she and her sweat-pants-wearing mentor are up on that roof.

She’s even had the opportunity – twice, actually - to slip something into Kate’s coffee, when the two of them had shown up together after archery practice, greeting her like an old friend when they find her behind the counter. But Natasha can’t bring herself do that to Danny, who has lent her his elderly cat to deal with the roaches, and has stopped charging her for croissants.

So what exactly is the problem? If she is honest with herself – and Natasha usually is – it comes down to Clint Barton.

This would be a good time to have a girlfriend or two to discuss things with. Like, why would an ordinary – fine, _extremely attractive_ – man be throwing her for such a loop that she finds herself unable to kill a third party, just because it would upset him and his friends?

Natasha wonders what Melina would make of the situation. She can almost hear her: _What’s with the Band-Aids? Can he not stitch up a wound?_ _Men are useless if they can’t handle a needle and thread_. _Find a man who can sew!_

 _Come on go for it, you deserve a bit of fun!_ Yelena would egg her on, with an elbow to the side and a glint in her eyes _. You can always kill him later, if he turns out to be firing blanks or gets too clingy._

Whatever the problem is, the fact of the matter is that Natasha is running out of excuses and her employer is starting to get impatient. She is halfway through her second latte of the day, wondering whether Clint might show up to join her, when her phone rings.

“I am _waiting_ ,” the unpleasant female voice at the other end says. “Two weeks and nothing? You are supposed to be the best. The most efficient. The most lethal! Prove it!”

Natasha has to hold the phone away from her ear to protect her eardrums from the assault.

“You have three days, or the contract is cancelled!” the harangue continues. “You will need to pay back the advance, of course, if you fail me. And I will personally ensure that your reputation will be in tatters, Miss Romanoff. _Tatters, I say!_ ”

Natasha clicks off the phone and frowns at the screen. _Bitch._

“Bad news?” her mark says jauntily and plonks herself down at Natasha’s table. “Can I help?”

Natasha gives Kate a long look, puts the phone face down and sighs.

“Yes, but you wouldn’t want to. Trust me,” she says.

Kate waves a _The Usual!_ towards Danny, who disappears back into the shop, singing _Con Te Partirò_ in flawless Italian as he does. She sets her oddly shaped gym bag down beside the table - her bow, no doubt. Headed for archery lessons with Clint, lucky thing.

“Don’t be so sure I can’t help,” Kate says, her voice dropping into the conspiratorial lower range. “Because I see what’s going on. You two just need a little push. Which I am _totally_ prepared to give you.”

“ _Us two_?”

Kate rolls her eyes and exhales noisily.

“You and Clint, of course,” She waves her hand in a vague, all-encompassing explanation. “You’ve been watching him. I’ve _noticed._ And he’s been positively…”

She doesn’t get to finish the sentence though.

Just as Natasha is beginning to feel invested in the conversation (positively _what?_ she feels like shouting) two large vans pull up in front of the apartment building, screeching to a halt. The backs of both open at the same time and out pour about a dozen or so men in brown tracksuits, armed to the teeth. One fires a semi-automatic into the front door; subtle, they are not.

“Oh shit, they’re back!” Kate snarls.

She reaches for her bag, pulls out her bow, snaps it open and slings a quiver over her back in about the same number of seconds it takes Natasha to reach for and pull out her Glocks.

A split-second later the sound of crashing glass comes from across the street and there comes Clint, hurling himself feet first out of a window he obviously hasn’t taken the time to open. He fires off three arrows in mid-air, at the same time (each hitting one of the goons) before sticking the landing on the roof of one of the vans. He swivels instantly to take on the man with the semi-automatic, who is trying to open the door whose lock he’s just shot to pieces. Clint’s arrow nails the goon’s hand to the doorframe, making it impossible for his cronies to get through behind him.

Natasha doesn’t have time to be impressed though. She is too busy taking out the two drivers and a guy jumping out of the passenger door trying to get into a position where he can fire at Clint. The latter is still perched atop the van, raining death and destruction on those dumb enough to leave the van instead of just shooting at him through the roof.

Out of the corner of her eye, Natasha sees Kate methodically letting arrows fly into tracksuited targets before they have time to seek cover. One of them finally figures out that the arrows are coming from two directions, not just one, and turns to takes aim at Kate across the street. Natasha drills a hole through his forehead before he gets the chance to pull the trigger.

Kate disposes of another goon while tossing a “thank you!” over her shoulder.

Between the three of them they make quick work of the invasion; clearly the element of surprise hasn’t quite panned out the way the gang may have planned. Clint jumps off the van, steps around a couple of bodies and heads for the coffee shop. Somewhere in the distance sirens are starting to howl.

“That was a lot easier than the last time,” he says to Kate. “Guess the key is not to let them get inside the building, sort of like with roaches? Also, they must be down to the D team by now. That’s what – two dozen or so in less than a month?”

Kate nods.

“If they keep this up they’ll run out minions, and no one will want to apply for the job. Bye-bye, shopping mall dreams.”

Clint grabs a chair, turns it around and straddles it. He seems taller, sleeker, and oddly energized by all that lethal competence he just got to display. Quite a contrast to the self-effacing, nice-guy dog owner Natasha has been having coffee with. The combination is … intoxicating.

“Did you order me a coffee yet?” Clint asks her and Kate. “The cops are gonna want another statement, and then Hill or Fury are gonna turn up, and Coulson’ll whine about why we didn’t call this in first, and yada, yada, yada. I just _can’t_ , not without caffeine.”

 _Hornet’s nest,_ her employer had said _._ More like those new-fangled murder hornets - no wonder her employer had insisted on hiring the best. Natasha is mulling the various implications of that thought over in her head, when Kate turns to her with a look of respect.

“Thanks for the help, by the way. Good thing you happened to have those guns handy.”

Natasha makes a decision.

“That wasn’t entirely a coincidence. I was hired to kill you.”

Clint snaps to attention and reaches for his bow.

“Not _you,_ ” she qualifies. “Just Kate. And I changed my mind.”

How do you explain to someone that your life has led you to a fork in the road and somehow you ended up driving through the sign that says _Private Property – Enter At Own Risk_? All because you like the look of the neighbourhood and the people who live there, and somehow got invested in their lives and their ugly pets?

Natasha puts her hands on the table to show that there won’t be any killing in the imminent future. Kate stares at her in sympathy.

“I hate to tell you this, but if you were supposed to kill me, you seriously futzed up.”

“I know,” Natasha sighs. “I’ll have to pay back a whole pile of money to my employer and my career as a freelance assassin may be over.”

“Probably not a bad thing,” Clint says. “’Coz I don’t think you’re serious about it. I almost made you on that fire escape, and that was _without_ my hearing aids in. That was you, wasn’t it? Looking for Katie?”

“Employer? Don’t tell me,” Kate says, ignoring him and zeroing in on the important bit. “Who was it? My father? I wouldn’t put it past him. That man belongs in jail.”

Natasha routinely files the question under _intel: family dynamics_ and shakes her head.

“Female. West Coast, judging by the accent and when she thinks is an appropriate time to call.”

Clint and Kate nod sagely and respond in unison: “Madame Masque! Should have killed that bitch when I had the chance.”

“Jinx!” Kate adds.

Things get busy around then. A large number of police vehicles have descended on the scene; a news helicopter hovers noisily overhead; Danny shows up with a tray of coffees, drops it on their table and heads across the street with his phone to take pictures; and a matte black SUV without markings pulls up in front of the café.

The first person to emerge from the SUV is a man in a suit who strides over to the police teams now swarming the scene, waving a badge and saying something about “official business”. The second is a dark-haired woman in a form-fitting tacsuit that makes Natasha want to ask her for the label.

The woman looks around for a second, takes in the scene, nods in an _I-knew-it!_ kind of way and zeroes in on Clint.

“Here comes Maria Hill,” he says, taking a deep draught of espresso with a look of resignation. “That’ll be fun. Maybe I should take my aids out?”

“Barton,” Hill starts in on her target, arms akimbo. “Do you have _any_ idea how much it costs to keep this kind of thing out of the news? You and your little friend here can’t just go around decimating criminal cartels on the streets of New York without prior approval. Last time, Director Fury had to call the Mayor personally. _And_ the Governor.”

“ _Little friend??_ ” Kate grumbles into her coffee, but wisely stays out of the matter

Clint bristles.

“Maybe Fury could ask the Mayor to put a stop to those real estate grabs then, while he’s got him on the phone? These crooks come into neighborhoods like this and think they can kick people out, knock down their houses, and … like, where would Mrs. Imamoto go, huh? And Deke, and Tito, and Lucia and her little girl? SHIELD should probably deal with these crooks before one of ‘em tries to run for President or something, ‘coz then the shit will truly…. Oh wait! That's already happened. Maybe...”

Hill’s laser-like blue eyes fix on Natasha.

“Who’s this?” she interrupts his rant before it turns into a political opinion piece. “Another one of those tenants of yours we’ll need to pay off to keep quiet?”

“About that,” Clint says, switching causes as easily as he does arrows. He shoots Natasha a pleading look and a conspiratorial wink. “Her name is Natasha and I think SHIELD should hire her. She’s fresh out of a job and has a very useful skillset. Tell you what, I’ll take her into HR myself, once we’ve finished our coffee.”

_SHIELD?_

Well, that explains a few things. Why the previous ‘Battle of Bed-Stuy’ received so little publicity, for one thing. And Clint Barton’s lack of presence on the internet; those unexplained absences for “work”; his competence in the face of a dozen murderous thugs; why Madame Masque didn’t want him killed, even as she obviously wanted him to witness the hit on Kate. Even those abs.

It also adds another one to the long list of details Masque conveniently left out when hiring her. Natasha is not a contract lawyer, but as far as she is concerned, that amounts to misrepresentation. So if the Lady wants her down payment back, she can damn well come and get it herself. Clint and Kate would no doubt be happy to see her.

Speaking of Clint, he looks at her expectantly, his eyes fully focused on her lips now. Is he waiting for her to say something, and afraid he might miss it?

Ah yes, SHIELD. _Job opportunity_.

“Sure,” she says. “I might be interested. I’d have to clean up my CV a bit though.”

Clint beams at her, but Hill’s eyes narrow all of a sudden.

“Wait. You look familiar.”

She punches a couple of commands into her smartphone and frowns.

“Well, this is awkward. Or convenient, depending on your perspective. Agent Barton, meet the Black Widow. She was supposed to be your next target. Her recent association with Madame Masque moved her up the Director’s list.”

Awkward indeed. Natasha’s hands inch towards her Glocks, just in case, but Clint makes no move. In fact, his shoulders are starting to heave and she suspects he is trying very hard to suppress a sudden and deeply unprofessional giggle fit in front of his boss. A few seconds of watching this and she can't help but join him.

"You're killing me, Maria," he gasps. "I honestly had no idea you could be that funny."

Kate rolls her eyes at the two of them.

“Okay, can we stop with the everyone-killing-each-other thing please and all just get along?” She looks over at the bodies on the street, which are in the process of being loaded into a fleet of ambulances. “With certain exceptions, of course.”

She turns to Hill.

“Natasha helped us with the goons and saved my life, plus, Lucky likes her. Also, just _think_ of the rumours you could start at SHIELD about her and Clint, or how she got hired.”

Hill looks from one to the other, and back across the street where the man in the suit is still gesticulating at the lead investigator, carefully blocking his view of the café. She pockets her phone and sighs.

“Fine. Your call, Barton.”


End file.
